Sharing and Caring
 

STAY POSITIVE, DON'T ACT OUT IN OLD PATTERNS AND BEHAVIOURS!

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Steps Six and Seven are about changing and truly looking at myself and getting honest.

Why should I not continue the Steps? Why should I skip over a certain step because we don't like looking in the mirror. Most people see us before we can see ourselves. People knew about me before I knew myself, they could see the changes and I didn't have a clue. Be it a change for the better or worse, I am empowered to change things when I surrender to the program, and work it a day at a time.

Not taking time to talk to my God on a daily bases is an old behaviour. Telling God what I think He should do in my life and that of others, is bad no matter what way I look at it.

For me defects of character are a part of my DNA and thinking, clean or sober. Short comings are acting out those thoughts and reacting to events around me. No more hissy fits, no more pity pots, no more cussing and cursing, myself or others, no more putting on the blanket of denial and hiding from reality.

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HUGS FROM ME TO YOU!

Xenophobiais a fear, hatred, dislike of aliens and strangers.

Perhaps that is why I didn't like myself, because I always felt like I didn't fit in.

Old tapes continued to play out through my whole life. I was never able to let go, and new ones were added to the old tapes that caused low self-esteem.

Who said that your opinion counted?

Did you think we care about what you have to say?

What makes you hear me say "What do you think?"

If you were not so stupid....!

Look at what you made me do! I didn't know that I didn't have the power to make him/her do anything.

I took everything personal, and didn't know that there was my stuff and theirs. Most times when things are projected onto me, it is their stuff and not mine to take on.

When my husband started to run around with other women early in our marriage, I thought it was my fault. I wasn't good enough as a wife, a friend, as a housekeeper (which was true to some effect as I worked full time).

When he introduced me to two of the women he was bedding, as friend he worked with and I was still I didn't allow myself to acknowledge it honestly. I left him because he hit in the car when he was driving me to work, for opening my mouth when he told me to shut up. I was trying to discuss financial payments for the end of the month.

When I went into labour, he drove me to the hospital and disappeared. The hospital asked me to call him and I tried for four hours, because I was having labour pains every 3-5 min. and they were not changing, and they suggested he come in and be supportive and help me to induce labour by walking me up and down the hall. I went in to heavy labour about 11 p.m., my son was born at 4 a.m. and when the doctor phoned to tell him he had a son, he was not home.

I went to stay with my best friend because I didn't even know how to change a diaper, bathe, and care for him. I was 24 years old. My husband left me when our son was 2 months old. My landlady wouldn't let me stay because I was a single parent. My husband had sold all our furniture and moved us into this furnished apartment. When I found a new apartment, I had no furniture. I felt like a failure, ugly, unlovable, abandoned, rejected, which reaffirmed other incidents in my life, and every thing became compounded interest.

I didn't know how to grieve, I started back to work and slowly but surely pills and alcohol were added to the mix to help me to cope with life. The first person to rape me was my husband, I didn't know I had the right to say "No" and that I had a choice.

As a result, I was raped three more times, and I ended up looking for love in all the wrong places, because I couldn't find it within myself. I found that if I can't love and respect myself, others will not always love and respect you. As they say, "Let it begin with me."

I had to cleanse my body, mind and spirit.

Thanks for letting me share.

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April 1st is my birthday. I always said, "It was the only reason for being who I was and then I found out I was an alcoholic/addict."

Posted in 2004 on another site. Many originated in my 15 sites that were finally deleted by MSN and Multiply and no longer in existence.

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Are you watching me or you?

Found this to be funny. How often does the paranoid alcoholic/addict think that they are being watched and everyone is looking at them.

When in fact every alcoholic/addict is looking at themselves and don't even know the other person is there.

A young guy in recovery said to me at a morning meeting, "Jo no one even noticed that I got my hair cut." Besides the fact that no one had seen him with his hair down, it had always been in a ponytail, no one is really looking at his hair, they are worrying if someone is looking at them.

Ever walk into a room and everyone stops talking and you think they were talking about you. Just maybe, they were just glad to see you and stopped to acknowledge you.

:undecided:

When I came into recovery, all I had to show for 49 years of living was a little square table and a tri-lite and eight green garbage bags of belongs to show for living. My attitude was stop the world I want to get off. When I left central Ontario to come to Hamilton I left behind a couch which was part of a $800. suite that my ex-husband ruined by laying down on it in his work clothes after he finished working in a machine shop all day. There was just a "little" bit of resentment there. It may have been left over from my first husband selling the furniture I bought when we were married for pitance to pay to have his car painted and moved us into an unfurnished apartment. The couch in the furnished place was ghastly, black with big ugly flowers on it. When my landlady asked me to leave when my husband left to move in with another woman, and she didn't want a single mother living in her apartment, I was glad my son had peed on it a few times, when I had changed his diaper. My son was two months old and certainly wasn't responsible, but somehow it seemed like sweet revenge in the moment.

When we moved her in 1984 it really was the downhill spiral for me because I knew I had to quit drinking and I started to escalate my pill use. My son got his own place in 1985 and he kept losing his apartments and he always moved in with me until the next time, and it became a vicious circle. Even after I came into recovery, I was still enabling him by allowing him to come home to mother.

In early recovery I didn't have a bed, I had left my apartment to my son and had moved into the YWCA and lived there for two years. At six months sober, I moved into my apartment and I borrowed a mattress and slept on the floor for three months until I could find some kind of bed. The first thing I got was an old chair with no arms that had a huge whole in it that I had to stuff with a blanket so I could lie flat, it was marvellous, I was six inches higher off the floor. It wasn't until I moved into my apartment at three years sober that my aunt made a decision to get new furniture and I got her bed chesterfield. I was put on disability in my first year and they bought me a bed, but I didn't have a couch.

After several years in Al-Anon, the guilt wouldn't let me continue, and it was about five years into recovery that I got the brilliant idea of giving him my couch and then he didn't have a bed to come home to. Then a friend of my son who was in the program relapsed and he lost his place, so I got his couch. It matched my swivel rocker and my easy-boy chair and I was happy. I have a thing about used stuff, it is new to me and if it is clean or cleanable, it is change, just like me.

Then when I moved to my new location last November I made the decison not to take this couch with me because it took up too much space and made my place too cramped. I am stll on disability, and though I quit smoking the exta money wasn't there because it became bridge money.

When I made the decision to leave the AA Fellowship and go to NA on the night of my first meeting in my new group, the gentleman who drove me home asked me if I knew anyone who needed a new couch. The owner was the first person I met in NA ten years ago, and his mother worked in the treatment facility I was at, although I didn't know that until several years later. I now have a two seater love seat, which pulls out into a bed and I am going to have my first guest tonight. The daughter of my unofficially adopted daughter is coming for a sleep over. My friend's real mother lives in a city about two hours away and I was adopted back in the YWCA back when I was using. She has been supportive and a good friend over the years, and is a student of Al-Anon and ACOA.

When I am grateful for what I have, instead of looking at what I don't have, I am at peace. I had nothing, so anything I have today is bonus. I didn't think I was going to live to be 40 and here I am 20 years later living overtime, with all that she needs, which includes a computer, a TV I don't find time to watch, and a life so busy, I have trouble finding time to get here to the site to post.

I love the native culture and I have a meditation I do with a book that is called "The Sacred Path Workbook." I finished a meditation one day, which said, "Give thanks, it is already on it's way." I said the words, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" As I got up off the carpet the telephone range, it was my friend asking me if a bag of groceries and $20 was enough money to babysit her daughter for the weekend. My prayer was help to see it through to the end of the month until my cheque came in.

He supplies my needs, sometimes my wants, and even my desires, because I desire each and everyone who reads this, another happy, prosperous and healthy twenty-four hours.

(originally posted on www.another-24-hours.com)

The holiday season is one day at a time.

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When I see post that I made like this, I have to laugh. How could I have stayed in denial for so long? I use to be the life of the party, then I became so introverted, that if I talked, you couldn't have heard me, not that I had a lot to say by then that was worth listening. You can't talk to a drunk, especially if you are trying to make sense of what they are saying. The lies, the lies by omission, the telling the way they think you want to hear it, or just out and out manipulation, fabrication, and totally without any sense of reality.

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When I came into recovery, I was told "We don't do this forever. We do it one day at a time." When we project into tomorrow worrying about staying clean and sober, we lose out on today.

When I stay in today, I have one day's feelings, one day's thoughts, one day's denials, one day's events and situations.

If I look at the whole picture, I get overwhelmed. Some days it is simply staying in the moment. I had a sponsor who told me for her it was three seconds because she was prone to seizures.

For me it has been doing what ever it takes to stay clean and sober, just for today. I can't, God (group of drunks) can, and just for today I choose to let Him/Her show me the way to sobriety (soundness of mind).

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One Day At A Time
 

This reminds me of my saying about myself and being an Aries, "The left foot is moving forward and the right doesn't know it has to move yet."

People get upset when they ask, "What are you doing Saturday, and I respond, "I don't know!" I may make plans, but I have found out one thing in recovery and that God and I don't always think alike!" Also, "We aren't always on the same wave length," although I do try to align my will with His, and "God doesn't always let me know what His plans are for me" although this inquiring mind often wants to know.

What I bring from my past is my old tapes, my old behaviors and beliefs, and that is what I need to change in today.

If I want a peaceful and serene life, then if I work on my recovery today, it will make for a better tomorrow.

If I keep looking over my shoulder at my past, then I miss out on today. It can also cause me to trip up in today because I am not watchful of the direction I am taking. The decision I make in today are based on yesterday's experiences instead of the good orderly direction from my Higher Power, if I am not focused and spiritual connected in the moment.

There is no right way or wrong way, all we are asked to do is try.

It is a program of practice, and for me application. I can only do what I can do in today. I can't go into those coulda, shoulda, if onlys, not that I don't, but I try to bring myself back when I am aware that is where I am at.

Really, all we do have is the moment. When you think of it, even an hour ago is old news. The day can start in the moment, just for today, I choose not to use.

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Received this in August of 1993 from the lady who introduced me to AA. I thought it would have been good for my dad and my ex-husband with no identification for myself, it was always about them. When she saw me at a Saturday morning meeting, she got up, gave me a hug and said, "I am so glad that you lived to make it!"

This is a greeting card she had printed for my 2 year anniversary. She got me moved into my first apartment at 6 months sober. The sad part was that she couldn't stay clean and sober herself, kept relapsing, but she carried the message to me and for that, she will be very special.

She signed the card: Keep up the good work, it sure looks good on you.

Congratulations Anna.

It's great to share these special times
And to accept friend's words of praise
To express gratitude to our Higher Power
And all who helped us thru the days
Early in recovery when it was often rough
Knowing that support is there
Whenever the going gets tough
We've received so much, what can we give
In return on this special day?
A promise to God and all our friends to simply give it all away.

The spiritual enlightenment for me was the phrase, "If you have to control it, it is already out of control!"

I had heard this phrase around the rooms for several years and it mean nothing to me. I kept coming, I didn't think I was an alcoholic, but I wanted what the people in the rooms had. I knew I didn't want to go back to where I came from, so I just kept coming.

I thought maybe if just kept coming, some of what you head would rub off onto me. So I came, and said, "Hi, my name is JoAnne, and I am an alcoholic" and was in total rebellion, with the attitude, "I'll say it if I have to, and went through the alcoholic/addict stage. Ironically, I knew I was an addict, and I think it was because I knew the meaning of the word. Or I could relate it to chips, or cookies, and the feeling of more, but couldn't identify the alcoholism. I knew I misused and abused my medication, but it wasn't until many years later that I came to know it as dried-up alcohol.

I came but I did all the wrong things, I compared instead of identifying. I don't like beer, I didn't have black outs, I didn't pass out after so many drink, I could drive the car after drinking all day and night and not get pulled over, I could walk a straight line (my son use to say he looked out the window and saw Mom bringing B**** home). I didn't go to jail, I didn't get tickets, I didn't get cut off at the bar, and the list went on, and on, and on.

After I heard the phrase above, I came to realize "Don't look at what you didn't do, but look at what you did do!"
That was a different story. I decided I would rather be an alcoholic.

It wasn't until God saw fit to give me a dream to let me see how others saw me when I was drinking. I was a first class, manipulating b**ch, who told everyone how to do it, what to do, when to do it, and was aggressive and a loud mouthed person that I wouldn't have wanted for a friend. I had assumed that the reason that people had back away from us because of my ex-husband's drinking, when it truth, it was probably my controlling, manipulating and nagging ways. Now that was a spiritual awakening, and I was two years in the program. I was sober but I can honestly say I didn't have true sobriety until then. Sobriety for me means soundness of mind. You can't have sobriety and be in denial and life of secrets and control. I was continually at war with myself, and often with those around me because I didn't have my own knowingness. I only knew what was told to me, and I had to find my own path and my own truth.

My spiritual adviser said, "You will learn two thing. 1) How to work your program. 2) How not to work your program.

Keep coming, so you won't have to come back.

Not sure if this is a duplicate, I know I have share part of this on other posts. Posted this on another site in 2011.

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Posted this on another post earlier this week. This was the original. The post I made up, I wrote as it came to mind in today! ;)

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Posted in June 2011

All I can do is try to be the best me I can be in today. When I stay clean and sober, I have the option.

How I handle each situation is between me and God if I let Him in and ask for His Care and Direction.

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When I grew up, I was isolated on the farm. When I went to high school, I was really fearful as there were more kids in my home group than there were in the whole of my rural one-room school. It was a real culture shock. We had to catch the bus to come home so we never could participate in things. We lived 13 miles away and if you missed the bus you were out of luck.

When I came home at 26 from the city my father said, "You use to be such a quiet young thing and now you are making up for lost time." I had my party years from 26-31 when I remarried. That too was a lot of party time too, mostly at home or the Legion. I made myself get up and welcome strangers. It was like feel the fear and do it anyway, but back then I had alcohol to give me the courage. It became false courage and I no longer was an extrovert, I became an introvert.

I am so glad that I can socialize in today. I had a lot of healing to do. Service really helped me in this area.

When I got sober, if I spoke no one could here me. When I was using, I could get up and address a roomful of people and I was the Sports Officer and put on cribbage, darts, bowling and euchre tournaments.

When I first got up to speak, people were shocked that I could get up and tell my story. I still had a couple of members from my group, come into a large AA meeting and saw me in front of the group speaking,and couldn't believe it. They came up and gave me a hug, told me they were in shock and told me that they enjoyed my sharing.

For me, it is a miracle. I don't do the speaking, I am but a channel.

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Forgiving or Resentful

"The purpose of resentment is judgment. When judging ceases,
so does the resentment. - - AA saying

"Forgiveness of others is a gift to yourself". - - AA saying

to forgive:
1. To excuse for a fault or an offence; pardon.
2. To renounce anger or resentment against.

to resent:
1. Be offended by, be angry about, take offence at
2. Bear a grudge, to feel bitter, indignant, or aggrieved at.

This wasn't and still isn't an easy task for me. It even mentions in my horoscope that Aries people are slow to forgive. It seems to be the nature of the beast, so it was something I had to take to my God.

I no longer resent the people from my past. I no longer resent 'some' of the issues from my past, although there are some that still come to mind, and I have to keep working on them.

Sometimes things happen in today and when I feel upset, I often find that there is a link into my past that is triggering it or it is compounded interest and an issue I haven't dealt with yet. I am so glad that this is a one day at a time program and that I can continue to work on these issues when they appear. I didn't get sick in one day. I don't heal in one day. I am human and make mistakes. I am grateful that my God is a forgiving one. I always need to remember that if He can forgive, why can't I?

When I find myself resentful, I know that the program says that I need to pray for the person(s) until it goes away. The situation doesn`t change, it is me and my attitude that changes.

I found that I had to forgive the person, the act wasn`t always forgiveable, but need to be let go of. The longer I hang onto it, I stay sick and it continues to burden my outlook and my day to day living. Do I want to keep my life in turmoil and live in chaos.

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For so many years, I looked outside of myself for something or someone, to make me feel better. When I think of it, it shows that the thinking is the nature of my disease.

It was so important, especially in times of chaos, to go within and connect with my God, and find peace and the good orderly direction I need to move forward, or the peace of mind to stay where I was, waiting for God's Will, instead of charging forward on my own, and trying to make things happen, and make it all go away, now if not sooner.

Let go of the fear, and when you go within, you can come from a place of faith.

Thanks for letting me share.

Know that my body and mind are not acting the way they are suppose to. Self care is so important, I ignored it for years, and as a result of not listening to it and being honest, I am paying the piper now.

Self-honesty is so important. Just glossing things over, and pretending it isn't happening, is not good. I found myself slipping back into old patterns and behaviors.

Today when I was lying on the hospital bed, I found myself angry and very agitated because my doctor wasn't there and how dare he keep me waiting there. Ouch! So I decided to do the colour meditation that I was taught to do in treatment. When I close my eyes, I see darkness and then, I generally go through the colour spectrum starting with red, other times, I go to green, blue, or indigo before I see the healing power of the white light.

Today I saw the red and new it was anger. An all time first happened today, it was weird and strange. It was like I was seeing down the tunnel of my throat, and it was all red, but it was like a red tunnel and it was in motion, and it looked clear. When I got the results of the scope, I was told it was normal.

It was light go of the anger, fear, resentment, etc. and trust my God. Knew He was with me, and it was like He was showing me I had nothing to fear.

When the doctor did come, they moved me around, stuck something in my mouth, and the next thing I knew, I was in the recovery room and was told to sit up and get dressed. I woke up feeling great, don't know what they gave me, and don't care. I don't think it was a narcotic because I didn't have a heaviness from the after affects. He stated in the room to the other doctor that I was clean and sober 22 years.

Thanks for letting me share.

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Shared this on another site:

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Can identify with this. I could stop, but couldn't stay stopped. If I stopped alcohol, I substituted other things, like food, pills, work, and busy as a whole, something to take me out of the moment so I didn't have to feel, be accountable, or acknowledge what was going on in my life.

When I got to my first anniversary, I was told, "Now the work really begins."

Once I detox, I was told that it took 11 months, I had some clarity and could start to have self-honesty and see the picture for what it was. It wasn't the alcohol,, it wasn't the prescription drugs, it was the thinking that was the problems and I have even more issues to deal with.

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Who am I in today? Who do I want to be? Who is the God of my understanding? Do I build a daily relationship with Him/Her? Who am I keeping company with? They say, "Stick with the winners. Any one who stays sober for 24 hours is a winner. Winners are also people who put together, one 24 hour on top of another.

What I did 20+ years ago, is still applicable in today. What I did 20 hours ago is needed in today. This is a 24 hour a day program. Just for today, I choose not to use people, places and things. Who I was in the past, isn't who I am in today.

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They say non-alcoholic beer, but in truth there is .05% alcohol
My husband may have got drunk, but it isn't up to me to say he is an alcoholic. He got drunk, he got violent, he had black outs which I never had. I remembered everything, often I wished I didn't.

I stayed in my denial about my own disease because I always compared myself to him and my dad and I didn't want to wear a label I had put on them. In today, it doesn't matter whether he is an alcoholic, or my father was an alcoholic who died as a result of his disease (he had angina and his nitro glycerine were all over the dresser and the floor when they found his body) in it, just enough to start a craving.

I have known several people who have relapsed because of it.

Personally, I hated beer. Never drank more than one from the time I was ten and tasted my first drink (communion wine I stole) and my last drink a glass of white wine with my dinner on August 20, 1991.

It helped nurture my denial, I can't be an alcoholic, I don't like beer! Yet when my husband was too drunk to finish his last beer, I would empty the bottle rather than leave it on the table. Today I know he was a drunk, I am the alcoholic with the stinking thinking.

A friend in a time of need, is a friend indeed as they say.

That is our disease. It tells us we don't have it. We are just "fine" and if you don't know what that means, the polite words are, "Fearful, insecure, neurotic and enjoying it!" There are varying versions, but it all means the same.

We are our own worst enemy and no one hurts us more than we hurt ourselves over the years. It is time to stop running, stop hurting, and let go of the past, a day at a time. We don't pretend it didn't happen, in fact in recovery, it is one of our biggest assets. Been there done it, don't have to go back there, but we can share with someone else what it was like, what happened and what it is like today.

I am not my actions when I was in active addiction. When I came into recovery, I didn't know who I was. One of the greatest gifts I was given were the words, "God doesn't make no junk!" I am not a bad person trying to get good; I am a sick person who is suffering from a disease over which she has no power over, who is trying to heal and get better.

Through the Grace of the God of my understanding, the Fellowship of the Spirit of several Twelve-Step Programs, I am healing one day at a time. I try not to look at how far I have to go, but how far I have come, and that I am a walking miracle, who hasn't drank or drugged for one day, I haven't used another person or place (my bed) to escape my own reality, and I have learned to live in today, one day at a time.

This was on my site The Spirit of Healing

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?

--The Wicked Queen

"Ugly, ugly!" This is often what we think as we look in the mirror. There are days when we feel ugly no matter how we comb our hair or wear our clothes. There are days when we feel like mistakes dressing up as people.

Criticizing ourselves on the outside is usually caused by the way we feel inside. When we measure ourselves by our physical appearance, we will always feel let down. No one can always be the fairest of them all.

Slowly we are beginning to understand how our real glow comes from the inside. We are meeting people in recovery who aren't beauty contest winners on the outside but who shine because of their personalities and their positive energy.

Today let me accept myself as a lovely person, inside and out.

One day I was walking to the doctors, and I passed two mentally challenged people sitting on a park bench. One said to the other, "Remember one day at a time!" I told my cousin, "I found this new concept! You just live one day at a time!" and she said, "Doesn't everybody do that?"

One day last fall I came limping into my building, very much into the, "Oh, Woe is Me" Syndrome, " and a woman was sitting in the lobby. Her first day out of her apartment since she had her foot amputated. She died as a result of that operations just after Christmas.

I must remember to be grateful, I have a leg to swell. I have a program to live, and I too have special people in my life who love me, even when I have those fat and ugly days.

Written in 2004.

Heard a girl share, "How many times did I drink to someone else's health?"

How little I was aware of what it was doing to my own. My father fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand and a glass or bottle in the other, I lived in fear with him for ten years. My husband became loud, abusive and violent when he drank. I compared myself to them. If you didn't see me drink it, unless you knew me really well, you wouldn't have known I drank.

The reality was, I could out drink them both and I had the resentment when the booze was gone, they were passed out, and there was nothing left for me.

I had the thinking problem, not a drinking problem like they did!

I had to learn to give myself permission to do certain things, AFTER I examined my motive and intent behind what was happening. My friend says nothing is good or bad, it is the intent and motive behind the thought and action which makes it good or bad for you.

I used my bed for years. Whenever I couldn't deal with life, reality and the situation at hand, I would crawl into my bed and hide, or I would run away from home with the attitude of "make me an offer I can't refuse" so I don't have to stay here and face me!

The same happened with food, work, computer, and meetings.

"Happiness, love and peace are where the heart are!" We have put our heart in some very unhealthy places and situations, and we wondered why we weren't happy; but worse still, blaming it on the other people instead of being responsible for our own choices.

Always looking outside of ourselves to make 'me' feel better. I can still do it in recovery, although not in so many unhealthy ways. It is certain a pattern I have needed to change in my life.

90/90 is good, but one day at a time, and living each day is more important. A lot of people project to the 90 and don't live in today. At the end of 90 there is no cure, there is no quick fix, I think the term was probably one of those 'old timer's' slogans or old tapes that refers to Step One, if you decide you don't like us, you can go back out and we will refund your misery.

I was one of the sick ones, I did two meetings a day for two years. Then with service and my program maintenance I was still doing 7-10 meetings a week. Now I am no longer as active in service if you don' count the number of times I come here, then I get to one or two meetings a week now that I have twelve years of living this program one day at a time.

A sponsor is important, the steps are crucial for serenity and sobriety, and the traditions have spiritual principles which we can apply to our own lives to help us with living. It helps within the groups, but it helps when you apply them to your home.

Monday at noon (est) we are doing Step One. To date we don't have a Monday night meeting, but I hope someone will be able to do one in the near future.

There are meetings every night. I am a recovering addict who used alcohol and pills to escape life, and I have a son who is out there practicing, and I have been going to Al-Anon for twelve years. Al-Anon helped me to find myself. It helped me see where my roots were and to identify old tapes and has been the basis of my recovery program. Twelve Steps are Twelve Steps, and it is about living clean and sober in today and letting go of the past, with a hope for a better tomorrow. Al-Anon and Nar-Anon help me with that. I am also an adult child of an alcoholic and the daughter of a mother who qualified for Overeaters Anonymous.

I am a recovering workaholic and just about any other program you want to put me in. My drug of choice is more. I can use anything to escape life and where I am at and not take the time to stop and look at me.

The First Promise says we will know a new freedom and a new happiness. I have the freedom of bondage from active addiction; but I was granted another great gift. I was given the freedom to be myself.

Written in 2004

When I am hurting, it is always back to basics for me, because it generally means I am not working my program to it's fullest.

I had a friend say once, "She went out and bought all the self-help books she could find, then she did a Big Book study, and found everything in there that she needed for living and for what she had spent time and money on, looking for 'outside' of the program.

Basics for me? Don't pick up! Don't use! Go to a meeting, talk to my sponsor, read my recovery literature from whatever fellowship material I need in today, apply the steps to my life and live the traditions so I can live with myself and my fellowman.

Keep it Simple! If sayings help you to remember all of the above, please use them. If you have some of your own, utilize them. It is about doing whatever works for you, in today.

I have twenty-two years of one day at a time. I sometimes hesitate to say I have that much sobriety, because some of those days my soundness of mind was questionable. I am clean and sober, but I strive for sobriety in today, this is a living program.

Through my Higher Power, my program is my anchor and foundation.

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Dried-Up Alcohol
 

Because I was raised to be a good little Christian girl, stealing didn't come easy for me, even when I was using. I would often try to justify it or talk you out of it but generally did it to your face.

I didn't think I was an alcoholic because I didn't have black outs, I could walk a straight line and had people tell me they never saw me drunk. All things that affirmed that I didn't have a problem.

When I got sober, I didn't realize how stoned I really was, especially when I drank and took the pills too. I would say, "Well I only had 5 drinks, that is nothing, I can't be drunk forgetting that I had a belly full of pills prior to drinking.

Even in my 'drinking' days, before I tried ti quit my way (substituting pills), I took two 222s before going to bed to prevent a hang over or so I said, not sure if I believed it.

I had black outs with the pills. Things I didn't remember doing or saying. I was taking medication that had a street name so it couldn't have been good. I heard people tell there drinking stories and I would think I didn't do that. Then when I got honest, I realized I had those same symptoms when taking the pills. As my drinking decreased, my pill intake increased. I had never heard about AA. When I got there, I found the solution. Don't drink and don't drug! Substitution doesn't work.

It took me a while in recovery to learn and believe that it doesn't matter what the substance is, it all leads to the same soul sickness.

When my mind started to think "more" it didn't matter what it was, what ever was on hand. i.e. food, computer, reading and shutting out the world, TV, bed, etc. all these things allowed me to hide and put up blocks to what I didn't want to face in the moment. I justified it all by saying it wasn't my drug of choice.

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Have been the brunt of a lot of gossip. It has made me look at myself and take my own inventory and take responsibility for myself, and leave the rest. I was told that for ever finger I point at someone, I have three coming back at me.

So if they speak about me, I always pray that the spirit of my program goes before me and those that know me and those that really care, will know I walk my truth to the best of my ability.

If I find myself judging others, then I really need to dig deep. It takes one to know one, whether it is good or bad. It is a very negative thing, yet I can change it into a positive for my recovery.

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For so many years I beat myself up for not being able to do what I thought was my duty or my responsibility. I try not to make promises I can't keep in today, I try to remember to say, "God willing."

I want to finish posting, but just hurting too much to do more at the moment. Need to reboot my computer and me. My muscles are burning and my bones are hurting, so going to take time to care for me. Sounds like a time off for prayer and meditation, and if need be, more sleep.

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Have caught up as much as I can today. Will have to start again at 1 a.m. and start a new day.

I knew it would help, to read the spiritual meditations. I never know what is going to come to mind when I read them if anything. Sometimes I look and my mind is blank, but often come back and it speaks to me, it is the message I need to hear in the moment.

I was sharing with a friend the other day, that in less than a month, I will be 72 years old, yet I still need this program, one day at a time.

On March 21st, I will be 5 months from 23 years sober, and yet, I need the program just as much in today, as I did when I entered the doors of recovery. It isn't about 23 years of sobriety, it is about being clean and sober for 23 years.

The biggest and greatest gift is that I didn't do it alone. It was because of people like you, who shared my journey with me. Without you, there is no me.

I didn't have a home group at 3 months sober to pick up a 3 month pin, not something I recommend. I was later given a pin from someone who hadn't been able to stay sober, he finally got over 3 months, and gave me one of his pins.

A guy in NA gave me his 7 year medallion. The 7th years was a big year of new awareness and spiritual growth.

A man. who lived across the hall from me, with 44 years of sobriety, gave me his fish and chips because he didn't feel like eating them. He died a year later.

When you see a man with over 50 years of sobriety, whose light shines out of his eyes, he lightens up a room and oozes serenity, you want what they have. I had a sponsor in early recovery who had the same thing, she fired me. She said that she didn't see me at the meetings she went to (I moved across town out of the YWCA), and not always able to go to her meetings. One was a speaker meeting, and they were not healthy for me, because you can hide in a speaker group, not enough service for me, and I made the mistake of comparing instead of identifying. Ironically, I go to that same group in today when I can get out, because it is my friend Bert's home group.

I thought of calling him today because I am thinking I am over due for an AA F2F meeting, but was in so much pain, didn't want to make a promise I wasn't sure I would be able to keep. If it is meant to be, it will be. A sure sign I need a meeting is when I found myself cussing, a sure sign that I am slipping back into the old SELF.

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W is for Wait. Wait on the Lord, He will direct your path. "W" can also stand for "Weight." Don't let your trials and tribulations weigh you down, turn them over to your God. Don't wait until they become too much of a burden to carry and you reach out for whatever your drug of choice is in the moment.

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When I look at this, I can identify. Anger and frustration has always been a big motivator for me. Before it was don't tell me watch me and I would try to prove everyone wrong.

Today, thanks to recovery, I go to the Steps and to my HP to do what I need to change me and my attitude. When I align myself with HP things just seem to have a way of working out.

When I get frustrated it is generally me back running the show or trying to make something happen that hasn't come into being yet. Doesn't mean it won't, just not in my time. Anger and frustration is often me not getting my own way.

Use to say, "Don't tell me what to do, watch me." I had to change my attitude, and in today it is "In today, all things are possible through my God."

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The story this tells me is that, we may not all be the same colour, race, and believe in the same creed, yet in the rooms of recovery we are one, gathered together with the same interests, with similar goals, and walk the same path. We feel at home, and it is a we program, not I can do it I, myself, and me.

We can do together, what I can't do for myself. It is sad how many times we try, before reaching out and asking for help.

May you continue to walk in the Fellowship of the Spirit.

Love the 'we' aspect of the program. I tried my way, and my way didn't work. "We" can do what I can't do alone. I put my life into the 'care' of God. He doesn't do it for me, I have to do the work under His love and guidance. when I surrender my 'all' to Him, I am better able to live life on life's terms. For me, it is a 'thought' here and there, go here, do this, do you really want to go there, what does this mean, why am I doing this, and so much more. The direction is there if I surrender, turn things over and listen for the answers.

can't just sit back and wait for Him to do the work for me. I can surrender, sit back and listen for the direction and guidance, knowing that He will give me the strength, courage, guidance, and inner knowing that I need to do what I need each day.

I like to think of it as living under His Umbrella.

The reality is without Him, I am powerless. Through Him, I am empowered to do what I need to do for my self. I no longer live in a world of illusion and I can get honest with myself. So much of that acceptance, is not only accepting what is going on around me, but accepting myself for who I am in today and where I am at.

Often it is at a crossroad, going through a shift and a change, letting go, and sometimes it is denial, grief, self-pity, and anger. It is often the reality of the moment, which can change from moment to moment, hour by hour, and day to day.

"God is as He reveals Himself to me in today." As I grow in awareness and learn to trust myself, learn to listen for the answers, I become more God conscious; and surrendered more and accepted more depending on that given day.

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Something I wrote on another site in 2004.

Looking outside of myself to make myself happy is Step Two. Why should I look to others to make me feel good. If I am not feeling good within, I won't recognized it outside. When I can't find it, and I find it and lose it, or keep thinking more, I am caught up in the insanity of my disease.

Shared by a friend:

Sometimes we don't always have the love and support of our kin and we find what we need in our home group and the members in the fellowship.

Don't forget that kin, knew us from our past and have to get to know us in today. How many promises we made in the past and action we preformed, that was hurtful and abusing. They have to get to see us walk our walk and learn to trust. Trust isn't something you get, it is something that you need to earn.

Keep affirming yourself.

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Keep going to meetings, you will find yourself there.

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Today and the last few days, I have been doing more meditation and have brought my cards out instead of just sitting still and talking to my God.

Since I was introduced to them, they have spoken to me. When ever I doubt or should say, listen to others tell me that I shouldn't use them and that they are tools of the Devil not of God, something happens to affirm my belief.

I have several angel, animal, spiritual teachings (Osho, Celtic, Sylvie Browne, Native American and Jamie Sams) and many more.

Today I asked what I needed for my health and well being. I was using the Celtic cards. I pulled the Spring card and it said, "To replenish my body, drink spring water and not to drink my usual drink. I had just poured myself a glass of Coca-Cola Zero.

When I shuffle the cards, ask a question. Shuffle them again, especially if I didn't like the answer or understand it, and I get the same card again, then I have to think there is a lesson to be learned.

Last night I pulled a Rune which told me to sit in the stillness. This affirmed my need to do meditation and ask for healing.

My friend and I were discussing this tonight at dinner. My place is quite small. It is crowded with two people in it. We can each take our own space. We don't have to fill up the space with words. We don't take offense if someone doesn't sit and talk to us, we can respect each other's space and allow them to be where they need to be in the moment.

Over the years, I have changed, things have come full circle in some areas, and there is always a new beginning. I always try to remember to ask for my own knowingness in today.

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